Ant: how do I pass values to properties from top level build.xml to build.xml in sub folders

Question

I have a set of folders with build.xml and sql scripts (one folder per database schema). I have a build.xml at the root level. I want to set the values of server, port, userid, password etc... in the root level build.xml and pass it to the build.xml in each of the folders. How can I do that?

Answer 1

This way:

<ant antfile="sub/build.xml" inheritall="true"/>

Answer 2

If you want a more fine-grained control you can set inheritall to false and pass individual properties as nested elements of <ant> task.

E.g.

<ant antfile="sub/build.xml" inheritall="false">
  <property name="server" value="server.foo.bar"/>
  <property name="port" value="1234"/>
  ...
</ant>

Also, <ant> task accepts <propertyset> nested element, so you can bundle several properties together and just pass a single property set.